Taking the home town team to the promise land - A Peterborough United Story

boro_andy

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So i wanted to set one of these up for a while but never got round to it! My first post on the board too!

I've started this kinda late as im already into my second season but i'll try and start from the beginning!


A brief history.

Peterborough United Football club.

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Peterborough United was formed in 1934 at Peterborough's Angel Hotel to provide a replacement for Peterborough & Fletton United, who had folded two years previously. The Posh played in the old Midland League. They won this league on six occasions, including five seasons in a row from 1956 to 1960. The Posh were elected to The Football League for the beginning of the 1960–61 season, winning Division Four.
Following the 1960–61 Fourth Division Championship success, The Posh spent seven seasons in the 3rd Division before being relegated for financial irregularities in the summer of 1968. The club took six seasons to return to division 3, winning the 4th Division championship.
In 1977–78 the club threatened to go one better until they narrowly missed out on promotion to Division 2 when they drew the last game of the season at champions Wrexham (0–0) when a win was needed to go up. The game was notable for the fact that over 2000 Preston North End fans came to Wrexham to watch the game and cheer on the home side – Preston were the club who went up because Peterborough did not win. The Wrexham defeat cast a long shadow over the club and it fell into a long decline. Relegation followed in 1979 and Posh subsequently spent 12 years back in the 4th division. The 1980s was a long story of mismanagement and false dawns, punctuated by the odd cup run.
In January 1991, Chris Turner, who had played in the 1974 Fourth division championship team took over as manager and the team embarked on a run of 13 unbeaten games that propelled them into the top four. Six players were signed on transfer deadline day, which at the time was a record for the number of players signed by one club on a single day. On the final day of the season, Posh travelled to Chesterfield needing a win to seal promotion. Despite going two goals down in the first ten minutes, the team rallied and drew level with goals from David Robinson and George Berry. Fortunately Posh's closest rivals, Blackpool lost at Walsall and promotion was achieved.
The following season arguably remains the most successful in the club's history. After an inconsistent start the team hit form during the Autumn when they knocked Wimbledon and Newcastle United out of the League Cup. The reward was a home tie with a Liverpool team containing Bruce Grobbelaar, Jan Molby, Steve McManaman, Dean Saunders and Mark Wright. Garry Kimble scored the only goal after 19 minutes prompting wild celebrations and a place in the quarter-finals. In the league, the team went from strength to strength and surged up the table. Middlesbrough ended the League Cup run after a replay and there was further disappointment when the team missed out on a trip to Wembley in the Football League Trophy when they lost to Stoke City over two legs in the area final.
Progress continued in the league and a play-off place was clinched on the last day of the season despite a 1–0 defeat to champions Brentford. The following week, Huddersfield Town came to London Road for the first leg of the Semi Final. Captain Mick Halsall's last minute equaliser levelled the score at 2–2. Three days later, the supporters travelled north more in hope than expectation but they were rewarded when the team came from a goal down to win 2–1 with Worrell Sterling and Steve Cooper scoring the goals. On 24 May 1992, Peterborough United played at Wembley for the first time, against Stockport County in the Third Division playoff final. With Posh winning 2–1 and gaining promotion to the new First division. They played in Football League Division One between 1992 and 1994 and finished 10th, their highest ever league finish, in 1992–93 season.
During the 2005–06 season the club had three managers: Team owner Barry Fry returned to management following former England international Mark Wright's sacking in January. Wright's assistant Steve Bleasdale was then appointed acting manager, but resigned in April. Keith Alexander joined as manager from Lincoln City for 2006–07. At the start of the 2007–08 season Alexander was sacked after a run of poor form and was replaced by Darren Ferguson. He started well, earning the club back to back promotions from League 2 to the Championship. By November 2009 Posh were bottom of the division and Ferguson left the club, to be replaced by Mark Cooper. In February 2010, after only 13 games in charge, Cooper also left the club and Jim Gannon was appointed in his place. Following confirmation of relegation from the Championship after a 2–2 draw at Barnsley, Gannon was replaced by Gary Johnson.

Peterborough United fans at Old Trafford in 2011


Gary Johnson left the club on 10 January 2011 due to policy disagreement. Two days after Johnson's departure, Darren Fergsuon returned to the club on a four and a half year contract. Peterborough finally finished 4th in 2010-11 Football League One with one of the worse defensive records in the third tier, conceding over 70 goals, but scoring 106; the most for anybody in the Football League that season. Peterborough beat Milton Keynes Dons in the playoff semi-finals. They defeated Huddersfield Town in the Final with a 3–0 victory, and gained promotion back to the Championship.
Darren Ferguson led the team to safety in its first season back in the Championship, leading to a finish in 18th.

(quoted from wikipedia - shameless i know!!)

After leading Peterborough to safety in the championship the chairman had another famous falling out while discussing the forth coming budget for the season. Darren Ferguson was quoted as saying "You can't expect me to do anything with kids", ironic given his fathers stance!

The Posh chairman moved swiftlt to apoint Andy Britton, one of many of the 15,000 fans present at Old trafford the day Peterborough secured promotion to the highest division of their history.


Given a budget of £300,000, britton moved to change this to allow a better wage allowance within the club.


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Jed Steer was signed on a 6 month deal to add some depth to our goal keeping, he eventually started most games in his stay as he was in good form!

Mark Howard came as a 4 star rated CB and with only Zakuani as the only CB at the club of a good enough standard it was deemed nessecary!

Djelabi was recommended by my scouts to me as a very good LB with my only other options being Alcock (who is natuarlly a RB) and a young LB in Ntlhe.

Peta was a 4 star projected striker which i thought may come in handy in the championship after a few years!

My expectations where to be in mid-table from the board, which i thought optimistic but i had confidence in the team! What actually happened was something altogether different!!
 
If anyone can shed any light on how to make those images clearer that would be awesome!
 
So this is what actually happened!

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I was stunned to say the least, coming into the last 10 games we were well in touch at the top, a few results slipped by us which meant we weren't quite able to win the league.

Delighted that we only got beaten 5 times with everyone else into at least double figures!

The fixtures.

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The best eleven.

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Also forgot to add the staff changes.

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Moving onto season 2!

I wasn't expecting much, if anything at best i was execpting to plunge straight back down to the championship. Our expectations where to avoid relegation. I felt if we battled hard i would be satisfied even if we went down.

Budget for the year was £10 Million, which i was chuffed about. I felt this actually gave us half a chance we stayed relatively injury free! I was expecting a pathetic budget if im honest probably nothing more than £1 million.

Transfers.

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I felt the best way to go about this would be to sign a few excellent youngsters.

My main two targets where Wilfred Zaha & Nathan Redmond. As you can see i managed to get both of them.

Those two targets took u 90% of my budget.

Gemiti, Lisuzzo & Moro where signed on pre contract agreement whilst in the championship as i wasn't confident that we would go up. Those three were more of a good championship quality. Interestingly Gemiti who was rated the worst of the 3 was the one i felt performed the best. Lisuzzo was hot & cold to indifferent with a lot of mistakes and the same could be said for Moro. Took me a while to realise this though! For periods, the whole defence would have ratings of 5.8-6.4. When i removed the two italians this improved!

Bell, Eardley, O'neil, Planas & Olazabal

Would feature well within the season ahead.

Evatt was signed in January to add some clout to some defence. Being an experienced CB & English i thought this might help but he didnt blend in to well and was later left to have his contract expire at the end of the season.
 
Great start mate, once u have told us everything il be looking forward to monthly updates!!
 
The season finished better than i had expected. After a shocking start in some cases, notably a 8-1 reverse at home to Newcastle. This had me expecting the worst for the season.

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The Results.

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A couple of decent cup runs too, most notably the Capital one Cup!

The most pleasing results for me where winning at anfield and at home to Arsenal. Especially after being played off the park by Manchester United (they are impossible to play against!!)

Overall, a very good season in terms of where we ended up. It could have been even better had our defence have been in better shape at the start of the season. We let in to many goals in single games which was very disappointing and is my key for next season. If it wasn't for the fact we scored quite well in the season we would have been in trouble! Some very high scoring games through out the season! Including 5-5 at home Liverpool!!

Best eleven.

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Hard to split the four best players for me. Barnett is a stand out with just how many goals he scored. Personally i felt the best player was Tommy Rowe. He was so consistant and chipping in with 9 goals from midfield to!!

Fans player of the season was Wilfred Zaha, he was at times quite brilliant but not yet consistant enough for me.
 
Now onto the current season!

In the off season i was approached by West Ham, they're budget was £68k which for me was paultry as that team needed a good few million spending on it for make it worth while advocate against the challenge i currently have!

Anyway...

This season transfers!

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Enter the brazillians!

As i mentioned in a previous post my main prioroty was defence this year as i felt we had enough going forward to do stay up this year.

I felt i would need a solid keeper & 2 solid CB to compete this season. As a lot of the goals we conceded where through the middle in the final third. Signing 3 lads from brazil seemed a good idea as they would at least speak the same language as each other!! Plus with the over inflated prices at home, it would have cost me 3 times as much to sign the same quality!

Deola - GK
Paulo Andre - CB
Santiago Vergini - CB

All scouted as part of my scout being sent to South America last season. They are all in they're prime as it is known so im hopeful of a more sold defensive line!

Other notables!

Ademilson
Mudingayi
Taider
Cirigliano

I signed ademilson as he was rated as 4.5 stars by my scout and he had a minimum release fee of 5.25 million. I'm fairly certain i will lose Zaha this year as he has already asked for an improved contract and im not prepared to pay the £40k/ Week that he is after. Ademilson's wages are around £16k/week which is already less than Zaha.

My other problem is that to sign Mudingayi & retain Tommy Rowe & George Boyd, i had to offer them highest earn clauses. This is kind of restrictive in some degrees as i can't sign very good players on more wages as i have to offer my squad players the same money!!

Mudingayi was signed as an experienced tackler in the middle of the park. He still has good stats for being 32 and im hopeful i can get a couple of years out of him.

Taider was signed as cover for Cirigliano. Reason being is that i am aiming to play more possession football this year. My tactic does promote it but my players in haven't had the best ball retention throughout last season. He looks a good player and when i need to change to a more defensive formation against the bigger teams he should help with retention too.

Cirigliano was reported to me by the scouting team as a 4.5 star rated DLP. This fitted with my thoughts for the season and it was on a free! I need that bit of quality in all areas and he fits the bill. I feel he will need six months to bed into the team though but being young it was a risk i felt worth taking.

Im not expecting miracles from this team/transfers for this year. Just building more of a solid foundation within the EPL. I have a few players being watched by certain teams at the moment. All of which have minimum fee release clauses attached.

Tommy Rowe 8.25 MIllion - I dont expect this to be activated though!
Wilfred Zaha - £10 Million - He is valued now at £7 Million with Spurs interested, with his current wage demands i'd probably have to admit defeat on that one!
Planas - Dont believe he does have a release but is being watched by Athletico Madrid. He hasn't performed brilliantly so if an offer came in id let him go if i had a replacement lined up..

Next post.... the season so far...
 
Current progress in the season has been ok. I've a couple of disappointing defeats where we have lead. Liverpool was hard to take as we lead for until the 84th minute. We seem to have a nack of losing silly goals when ahead!

Anyway.. Heres the table to date.

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Results.

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Few more staff additions.

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Team profile.

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Team seems to be more solid. A few individual errors have cost us in the two home loses. City just played us of the car park to be honest. We had no answer to them this year!


So there we are, up to date! If there is anything i could be doing better in terms of reporting, please let me know!

Cheers!
 
So to finish off the month and leave a linear feel to proceedings. Here are the results of the final two games!

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End of the Month League positions.

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Young Player & Runner Up Young Player of the month!

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An outstanding couple of performances all round, capped by some fantastic goals! I would upload a couple but i don't quite know how to!
 
Onto October.... After two great performances, one not so....

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Another 2-1 home defeat despite leading, need to look into this.... Unlucky to lose away at Arsenal as the second half we were much the better side and deserved at least a point!

Great result against them at home, Zaha again with another brilliant goal! Sunderland again another fantastic result in which we deserved all 3 points comfortably.

An average month, could have been better with another possible 4 points to have been had which would have seen us comfortably in the top half!


League Table.

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YPOTM again...
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Squad Overview.

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Vergini is proving well worth the outlay, putting in some superb displays and pitching in with a couple of goals.

Zaha i imagine will defintely be off in January, wants to move to a bigger club and his value is increasing month on month. Won't negoiate a contract without an even worse minimum fee release and his since backed out of talks altogether.

Shame fantastic player but he has my blessing, he has been wonderful for us. Ademilson get ready to pick up the batton!!
 
Sorry if you have already posted this but have you expanded London Road yet?
 
Hi James,

Not really no, its just about all being converted to seating. Will post a Screenshot of Facilities and WIP
 
November update!

A good month overall!

Results.

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Posh 2 - 3 Manchester Unitd - Boyd, Cirigliano

Gutted about this one, we led 2-1 at the break but just couldn't hold out. Had enough chances to win the game, a draw would have been a fair result.

Everton 0 - 0 Posh

Solid performance from the boys, we probably deserved the win but only just.

Posh 2 - 1 Southampton - Boyd, Ayala (OG)

Always in control of this game, should have scored maybe one more.

Stoke 3 - 1 Posh - Zaha

The less said about this one the better, shocking perfomance all round. Never in the game. A goal flattered us.

Norwich 1 - 3 Posh - Taider, Zaha, Tomlin

Much better! Played Andre in this one, he lasted 34 minutes before being brought off. He brought the whole defence down. After this we were crusing. So much for the previous years FA Cup winners!

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Has left in 7th in league, im delighted to be honest. A continuation of this form and europe isn't out of the question. I'd like to win perhaps the league cup this year but we have chelsea next which will prove difficult but we have had results against them in the past.

Squad Overview.

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If you can't see anybody, they'll be injured as i run with the filter on!

Young player of the month for Redmond this time! Ademilson taking 3rd which was nice!

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Redmonds Stats - Wonderkid has only just come about!

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Luckily he hasn't been as stropy as Zaha and should be ok for the season. Thankfully he didn't request a minimum fee release either so if i should have to sell him i should get a good price.

Made the mistake of not letting any of my other GK's go out with a recall on so my Under 18 keeper is on the bench for the foreseeable!


Looking forward to January transfer window...


If Zaha goes i will need another striker, i think i could do with another LB and LM but having signed the Italian Rossi for a few months he is doing ok as back up to Boyd.
 
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